9 Books to Read on your Summer Holiday

With the summer upon us I thought I’d share some of the awesome books I’ve been reading lately to save you having to worry about what books you need to be taking on your summer holiday this year. We all know that the best part of a summer holiday is the lounging by a pool or on the beach and getting lost in a really good book. Some of the books mentioned below are new for this year and therefore available in many stores others are a few years old and will need to be purchased from Amazon.

Here are my recommendations of books to read on your summer holiday

Us by David Nicholls

This book is from the famous author of One Day, a book I absolutely loved. The story has the same feel where you are constantly catching up on the past bit by bit but it also has a prominent story in the now too. This story is the quest of one man to save his marriage and relationship with his son through a trip of a life time through Europe. As you can imagine, like One Day, things do not go smoothly and this book will have you on the edge of your seat with hope until the story pans out in black and white before you. The best follow up to One Day.

Girls Who Travel by Nicole Trilivas

Any book that’s about travel is my first choice, so deciding to read Girls Who Travel was an obvious choice for me. This book covers all those cliche feelings of finding yourself while travelling but the way Nicole tells the story is anything but cliche. The book starts fairly slowly but before long you will find yourself completely drawn into the story, cringing with Kika as she makes those silly mistakes and cheering as finally it looks like something might go right. Fast forward a little and you won’t be able to put the book down, you’ll cry as you think about a travel romance you once had and stay up all night desperate to find out what happens come the end of the book.

The Tea Planters Wife by Dinah Jefferies

I read this book in four days, I just could not put it down. Set in the 1920s in Sri Lanka, Gwen is a British girl married to a rich tea planter owner. Once wed she has to get used to life in this new culture, but that isn’t all she has to contend with. Gwen soon becomes pregnant and from then on the story takes more twists and turns than you could ever imagine. Dinah has a way of making you live the story with Gwen and your heart strings will be tugged in all directions. Gripping read.

Deception Point by Dan Brown

This is a totally different kind of book to the one above, but sometimes it is good to read something different to the norm. It did take me a while to get into it because of this. However, by the time I had read the first third I was hooked. It was one of those books where you are trying to guess what is going to happen next before it happens. Like most Dan Brown stories some of the outcomes leave you debating how ‘real’ they are but you are always glad they happen nonetheless. This is an absolute page turner and one that will have you staying up into the late hours to finish it.

Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortensen and David Oliver Relin

I absolutely loved this book in so many ways despite again being something every different to the other books on this list. Being a trainee teacher myself it reminded me of the importance of education in every child’s life and left me feeling inspired to help children from less fortunate backgrounds. Unfortunately there is a lot of negativity surrounding this book with people claiming much of what is written is lies, however, I guess that is always the danger of a real story being made fiction. Despite this, it is a beautifully written story and a novel I would recommend purely for the way David puts this story into words.

Me Before You by Jojo Moyes

I’d been recommend this book by a friend who said she loved it and guess what I loved it too. So much so that I read this book in two days, TWO DAYS?! That is so unlike me, I’m such a slow reader. The story follows the lives of two different people who come from very different worlds but when their worlds meet they both have a propounding effect on each other. She is a girl who has lived and worked in the same town all her life, he is an adventurer, a traveller and lover of the big life or at least he was until he ended up in a wheelchair. And that is all I’m going to say about the book because I’m scared of ruining it for anyone who hasn’t read it. Just trust me when I say this is my #1 recommendation on this list. 

Secrets of the Tides by Hannah Richell

When you have just read a book as good as the one above, the next book as a lot to live up too. Well this book did a pretty good job. I was gripped from the beginning as the author drops hint after hint of a big secret that Dora needs to overcome before she can move on with her life. The book flicked between present and past until you finally understood the whole of the family’s secret, each person having their own part to play in it. There are so many twists and turns along the way that I never got bored and always struggled to put it down.

Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

This book was so good that I read it cover to cover in one go. By this I mean I was on a long haul flight and started to read this and ended up reading the whole book before I knew it. It was the quickest 12h flight I have ever been on. This book had me gripped from the minute I picked it up to be fair, I knew from the way it was written from the first chapter that Rachel had many secrets that were going to be uncovered throughout. I guessed the first few about her past life and lack of job but the ones that followed with the present day mis-adventures had me hooked until the very end. I genuinely didn’t manage to guessing the ending despite having many attempts at doing so. This recommendation is certainly not fair behind Me before you.

Room by Emma Donoghue

This book had been on my ‘to read’ list for a while when I found it on the British Airways film listings. I stupidly gave in an watched it. Stupid because I can now never read the book and enjoy imagining the story myself because I have seen the film. However, despite this I know that if the book is half as good as the film then it will be an amazing read and chances are the book will be better and therefore even more worthy of a read this summer.

Have you got any books to add to this list?

I still have Separation by Dinah Jefferies, Inferno by Dan Brown and Run Lily, Run by Martha Long to read this summer.